From Anthony Sartor & John Sartor

This month, we are shining the spotlight on WarrenPro, a company which was designed to assist insurance companies and legal firms in the prosecution and defense of claims. It is led by Joe Lifrieri, who has been in the PS&S family for more than 35 years, starting in 1979 as the Assistant Chief Geotechnical Engineer. Joe has a Ph.D. in Engineering and has decades of service on a variety of multi-disciplined engineering and architectural projects. Our employee spotlight this month is on Renard Barnes, WarrenPro’s Managing Director and General Counsel for the AJS family of companies.

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WarrenPro had been looking to expand its senior management team to bring on board industry experts that understand the analysis of insurance claims for the benefit of design professionals and insurance adjusters. We could not be in better shape than with these two professionals running the show at WarrenPro.

It is fitting to kick off 2015 with this newsletter that broadens our focus on our sister companies and partner businesses. As we mentioned last month, our companies are growing and expanding, and we think this is the perfect place to share their stories with our clients and employees.

From Warren Pro President Joe Lifrieri

For WarrenPro, RISK is a four-letter word. Our business is dedicated to managing, minimizing and reducing liability, or simply put, controlling risk as much as possible. Our services span multiple industries, including insurance, legal, pharmaceutical, and healthcare.

Our clients usually have one key question: Our insurance clients ask “am I liable?” For our attorney clients it’s, “Can I win?” WarrenPro’s engineers, forensics analysts, scientists and consultants have probed and evaluated hundreds of projects, and we use our expertise to answer those questions honestly and see the case through to a successful outcome.

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Built on 45 years of personal experience, WarrenPro’s team is broadly experienced but has a focused and intimate approach to client needs. WarrenPro also carries the exclusive support of more than 250 qualified in-house scientists, engineers and architects and other associates, each of which is specialized within their fields to provide the most in-depth and efficient solutions. Utilizing customized forensic techniques, we probe and analyze incidents objectively. Our job is to identify, educate, and solve.

We know what works, and it all begins with personal relationships – developing them, nurturing them and then following your contacts wherever they go, from company to company, creating new relationships along the way. This allows WarrenPro to be on the “tip of the tongue” of any potential client which will enable us to be successful in 2015 and beyond.

I am excited to be working with Renard Barnes as we look to make WarrenPro the go-to consultant for insurance experts. As you read the following employee spotlight, I think you’ll agree that this is no ordinary lawyer!

Employee Spotlight: Renard Barnes

He scored four points in an NCAA tournament game, fixed broken steam pipes under the streets of New York and successfully argued a jury trial saving his client hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes, a man this versatile actually exists. And he’s sitting right down the hall.

Renard Barnes is the Managing Director of WarrenPro and General Counsel for the AJS family of companies, but clearly his story has many, many chapters.

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Let’s start at Syracuse University in the 1980’s where Renard was earning his degree in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics. While tackling such challenging coursework, he decided to attempt the impossible: walking on to make the basketball team for one of the premier programs in the country. Renard succeeded in impressing Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim and joined Pearl Washington, Rony Seikaly and the rest of the squad in their quest for the 1985-86 national championship. “I knew I was a good player,” Renard recalls. “Now I was good enough to wear the Orange uniform.” Unfortunately, the team was upset by Navy in the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament, but not before Renard Barnes scored those four points in the opening round game against Brown, forever cementing his name in Syracuse lore.

From SU, Renard worked with several consultants and contractors as a Field Engineer on numerous utility and heavy/highway construction projects in the City of New York and Westchester County, NY. As a field engineer, his job was to make sure the lines and grades were laid out correctly, labor and equipment were in the right locations, and field measurements were recorded for the work performed. He did this while attending law school at Pace University where he earned his Juris Doctorate Degree in June of 1994.

It was while he was a consultant on a Con Ed steam rehabilitation project where one of Renard’s career highlights occurred. There was a dangerous situation at the intersection of 30th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. An old S-bend fitting developed a crack and needed replacing. Con Ed had many of its employees in the area, but asked Renard to figure out how to replace the damaged S-bend. “It was in a funky spot, but I figured it out,” Renard remembers.

About the time he was working in the streets of New York and in law school, Renard married Tiffani, now his wife of more than 20 years. They have 4 children: a 23-year old daughter living in Seattle, a 21-year old daughter who is an academic All-American and track star for the University of Alabama, an 18-year old daughter who is a freshman hurdler at the University of Cincinnati, and a son who is a basketball enthusiast and in the 8th grade.

After getting his law degree from Pace, Renard secured a job in the Construction Management and Law Departments of Con Ed. After working for Con Ed, Renard worked for 2 New York law firms doing construction litigation and then in 2002, he was hired as Assistant General Counsel for Schoor DePalma, until it closed its doors in 2010. Renard was then a Senior Litigation Attorney at the Law Offices of Joseph Carolan, a CNA staff counsel office, where he represented architects, engineers, consultants, and contractors in commercial litigation, personal injury, and property damage matters.

Renard’s 2nd memorable career moment came in the courtroom. “I won a defense verdict in a jury trial for a roofing contractor who was being blamed by a warehouse tenant for damages that occurred during a water leak from a major rain storm,” Renard said. “I convinced the jury the damage was due to faulty piping within the warehouse and the not the fault of my client, saving him hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential damages.”

Renard joined our company in March of 2014, and by his own account, is a natural fit to not only manage the risk for the PS&S entities but to assist in developing, managing, and growing Warren Pro. Based on his past successes, he is more than ready for the challenge.